Thanks for this Will, I have now ordered all the bits I need for now. This parts numbers game is a laugh, isn't it. There are actually relatively few distinct brake shoes amd wheel cylinders, but add in about 30 aftermarket suppliers each with their own part numbering system and the number of possibilities rapidly runs into the high tens of thousands! Added to that, suppliers change their numbering systems over time, as newer car models arrive, and they 'rationalise' every few years.

In essence my brakes are Mini/Lockheed on the front (though Girling also offer the shoes as patterns!) and Herald/Girling on the rear. At a rough estimate I'd say there must be at least 30 different part numbers for the front shoes, slightly less for the rears as I guess fewer suppliers entered the aftermarket in time to supply the Herald/Spitfire customer base, which anyway was probably much smaller than the Mini base.

Then add in the different wheel cylinders and their differing bores and it becomes almost overwhelming. Anyway, all sorted now, just waiting to see what arrives for the new 3/4 inch master cylinder.

Also, and I shouldn't have to say this to the folks on here but better safe than sorry: eBay is awash with unattributable pattern parts, especially for shoes but also for the hydraulics, at fairly low prices, but branded parts are not dramatically more expensive. I note that even Rimmer don't say where they get their bits from unless it's a premium brand.

One word of caution. The barrel type adjusters on the Kitten / Mini backplates are not the greatest design with their resistance to movement determined by a wafer washer between the underside of one part and the back plate. They love to seize, and then go too loose when freed up. Your brakes all look in fairly clean / good order so should not be a problem, but treat them with caution when adjusting!

Sound advice and well received, but I have some experience with Kitten brakes, albeit 30 years ago in the early 80s. So the first thing I did when I stripped these down was to check the adjusters turn OK The thing that really used to irritate me about the Kitten brakes was actually the handbrake cable. I remember many times scraping crud off it, and squeezing plusgas in, to free it up, and greasing the spreader bar pivots etc, thinking how is it we can put a man on the moon, and we can invent nuclear power stations and we can get Concorde off the ground, but we can't get a handbrake cable that doesn't jam up solid in less than a day ???

I haven't looked too closely at the Webster cable yet, it seems to work and seems to be covered in thick black lard, so I'm leaving well alone until I'm forced into it. I'll say one thing for Reg, the chap who built this Webster - he didn't scrimp on rust prevention - every nut and thread is plastered with some goo or other, surmounted by a plastic cap to keep the weather out. I don't know what you put on the roads around Sheffield but whatever it is, Reg was determined it wouldn't beat him !

So much so I once had an entirely whited out road before me with not a marking visible for love nor money. I point to that as my excuse for failing that driving test.

The Kitten handbrake is a truly naff arrangement, which for anyone reading this who is unfamiliar, essentially the cable runs parallel to the axle before being diverted through 90 degrees by means of a rudimentary steel U channel bracket. This inevitably get grubby, seize up, wear the cable and worst of all, should you dare to do an elaborate handbrake maneuver you may well find the brackets snap off all together!

The Robin with it's girling setup is far simpler. I miss the handbrake cables that featured grease nipples, can't seem to find them anymore

Hopefully my last question on this thread - how should the rear cylinders be connected to the pipes?

The wheel cylinders slide, and by a fair amount it seems. So you'd think there should be a standard flexible hose to them, as there is for the front wheels. But on this car the pipes are clipped to the rear axle and go straight to the cylinder - nothing flexible except the copper pipe itself:

001.JPG (174.46 KiB) Viewed 761 times

Is this normal for Herald rear brakes? I can't find a picture anywhere of the standard Herald layout, so I'd appreciate any advice as to whether this rigid connection is OK or not. Thanks.

They appear to be the same heritage as SE5-6 rear brakes with a sliding cylinder? In which case they have solid pipes. Firstly, they should only ever move a minute amount but that’s not an issue with the steel (or kunifer) lines which can take it

Phil Howard
Scimitarweb Forum Admin
SS1 1600 Rooster Turbo; Sabre Mk1.5, Sabre Mk2
Previous: SE5/5a/SS1 No.1/SS1 Rooster/SS1 1800Ti/SE5a 24 Valvehttp://www.ss1turbo.comNever try and argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you based on experience.

knowing it's 'normal' - must be one of the few things on the car that is !!

Talk about famous last words... thought I'd go through all the papers and invoices that came with the Bug, just to see if there was anything to confirm the standard Mini front brake hoses... I found not only a letter from Lockheed to the builder about it, but also a fitting instruction booklet for a remote servo for the brakes...

Sure enough, careful tracing of the brake line from the master cylinder revealed a servo unit fitted well hidden away in the top of the front 'nose cone' section...

Now at the breakdown that started all this, the front brakes had clearly been dragging as they were smoking hot, and the subsequent pedal-to-the-floor diagnosis said the master cylinder was shot. But in reading around about this servo, a TR forum post says air leaks on the servo can lead to the brakes not releasing properly when the pedal is let up. So I am now wondering if either the servo was faulty, sticking and/or leaking, or if maybe at over 20 years old both the master and the servo were failing?

The net discussion concluded that these servos aren't worth the hassle, particularly on a light car, and certainly the Kitten never had or seemed to need one. So, does anyone have any views on this? I plan to take the servo unit out completely. I'm fitting a 3/4 inch master in place of the 5/8 inch the car came with so that anyway should give harder brakes, plus steel braided new hoses so hopefully the whole set up will be as efficient as possible.

with four leading shoes on front of a light beast, i'd be going for 'simplicity' , it's not as if the seat is going to shift is it . . .. . .

Thanks for that. Not statistically significant, but so far the scoreline is: Standard: 1; Servo: nil.

To my surprise, I have been told on the Bug forum that several people have fitted these aftermarket servos to their three-wheelers and find they work fine. I'd have thought too-powerful a brake on an even lighter car would lead to problems, but evidently not.